Rabbi Arthur Schneier, President and founder of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation (right) joined Dr. Sang Jin Lee, South Korea's First Vice Minister of Education, Science and Technology (left) and Tuvia Isreaeli, Israel's Ambassador to the Republic of Korea at the Israeli Embassy in Seoul. Photo: Rubenstein Associates.

Arthur Schneier, the “Rabbi to the Diplomats”, was in South Korea recently following a personal invitation from President Lee Myung Bak.

“President Lee and First Lady, Kim Yoon-ok hosted Rabbi Schneier and his wife Elisabeth at a private luncheon in the Blue House in appreciation of Rabbi Schneier’s leadership to promote interfaith reconciliation, human rights, and tolerance,” a spokesman for Schneier said.

The Austrian born rabbi founded the Appeal of Conscience Foundation in 1965, an organization that has worked to promote religious freedom and human rights throughout the world for nearly 50 years.  During his visit, Schneier celebrated 50 years of diplomatic relations between Israel and South Korea with Dr. Sang Jin Lee, South Korea’s First Vice Minister of Education, Science and Technology and Tuvia Isreaeli, Israel’s Ambassador to the Republic of Korea. Both countries gained their independence in 1948.

Schneier, who hosted Pope Bendict XVI at the Park East Synagogue in New York in 2008 – the first visit by any Pope to a Jewish temple in the United States – visited the demilitarized zone that sits along South Korea’s border with North Korea, as well as Yonsei University in the capital, Seoul.